V^ 1 



ADDRESSES 



INAUGURATION 



PRESIDENT HYDE, 



BOWDOIN COLLEGE, JUNE 23, 1886. 



ADDRESSES 



INAUGURATION 

OF THE 

J 

Rev, William DeWitt Hyde, 



AS 

PRESIDENT OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 



WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1886. 



BRUNSWICK, MAINE. 



1886. 






>s 



STEPHEN BEKRY, PRINTER, PORTLAND. 



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ORDER OF EXERCISES 



I. Music. 
II. Prayer of Invocation. 

III. Congratulatory Address, by the 

Rev. John Orr Fiske, D. D. 

IV. Address and Investiture, by the 

Rev. Edwin Bonaparte Webb, D. D. 

V. Music. 

VI. Inaugural Address, by President Hyde. 

VII. Prayer by the 

Rev. Javan Knapp Mason, D. D. 

VIII. Benediction, by President Hyde. 



CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS, 



REV. JOHN ORR FISKE, D. D. 



CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Boards, Brethren of the Alumni and 
Friends : 

It is a welcome and auspicious day which has 
brought us to the inauguration of the new President 
of our College. It is our own profound conviction, in 
which we are confirmed by the cordial approval and 
co-operation of all who have a knowledge of the facts 
of the case, that it is the good providence of our God 
which has led us to the exercises of this hour. 

On former occasions of the death or removal of 
eminent Presidents and Instructors of this College, we 
have often been constrained sadly to exclaim " Sol 
occubuit " ; but by the rich blessing of God we have 
still- been enabled to add " Nox nulla secuta est ! " So 
is it to-day ; whatever we have lost, all is brightness 
and joyousness of prospect for the time to come. 



ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE, 



REV. EDWIN B. WEBB, D. D. 



ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE. 



My dear Sir: 

Speaking for the Boards, whom I have the honor to 
represent on this occasion, we congratulate ourselves 
and we congratulate you on the event which brings us 
together at this time. 

The College entered into the early designs, efforts 
and sacrifices of our fathers. The College has always 
held a prominent place in the life and history of New 
England. 

This College bears an honored name, — a name that 
carries us back to the days of trial and heroic endur- 
ance for Christ's sake. All the history of its years 
comes up before us very vividly to-day. And we 
count it a joy to introduce another President — and 
one so young, so full of promise, courage, zeal and 
pious devotion — into the long line of eminent scholars 
who have filled this honorable position. 

Just eighty years ago, the first President graduated 
the first class from this College. President McKeen 
was called, at a comparatively early age, from a sue- 



12 ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE. 

cessful pastorate in the Mother Commonwealth, to 
enter into the prospects and shape the interests of the 
infant institution. And here, as in his ministry, he 
showed himself to be a man of great ability, of varied 
learning, of excellent judgment, of a mild and concilia- 
tory and yet fearless temper. Too brief was his life 
here. 

After him, still younger in years, came the almost 
model man and President, Appleton. From his rural 
parish he brought habits of earnest study and conse- 
crated living. Dignified but winning in manners, keen 
in discrimination, effective in wit, faithful in prepara- 
tion, clear and concise in statement, he did admirable 
service in the class room, and won for himself a posi- 
tion among the foremost of the theological and re- 
ligious thinkers of his day. If not brilliant, his course 
was ever upward and onward, and, like that of the 
just, shining more and more unto the perfect day. 

Next came President Allen — a man of literary dili- 
gence, of exact scholarship, of strong purposes, and 
deep religious convictions. 

At the early age of twenty-six, he succeeded his em- 
inent father in the pastoral office, and ministered to 
the people with marked fidelity and success. At Har- 
vard and at Dartmouth also, he served with distinc- 
tion. 

His American Biographical and Historical Diction- 
ary, surpassing anything which had hitherto appeared 



( 

ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE. 13 

in its line, was a monument of patient industry and 
literary research. 

We owe to him the idea, I believe, certainly the es- 
tablishment, of the Medical School in connection with 
the College. This beneficent piece of work, with some 
marked changes in the character of the College Boards, 
he accomplished before he had been one year in the 
President's chair. 

But I hasten to speak of another, also enrolled on 
the list of the departed. 

My own President, Leonard Woods — how vividly I 
recall the man : his dignified appearance : his graceful 
bearing : his voice, binding like a spell : his wealth of 
acquirements. At the early age of thirty-two he came 
here with a ripeness of scholarship, a felicity and 
affluence of conversation and a brilliancy of reputation 
that any man at fifty might well be thankful for. Very 
few of his pupils ever hear his name without a feeling 
of admiration and thankfulness. 

And when he sought to possess the inheritance to 
which he believed Bowdoin College entitled, he aston- 
ished such eminent lawyers as Jeremiah Mason and 
Charles G. Loring and Benjamin R. Curtis and Simon 
Greenleaf and Peleg W. Chandler with the practical 
wisdom and profound suggestions arising from his full 
and familiar understanding of the most intricate prob- 
lems of international law and contingent inheritance. 

Other Presidents, distinguished, useful and honored, 
I may not detain you even to mention. Nor is it 



14 ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE. 

needful. These names are enough to recall the worthy 
succession into whose lengthening line we introduce 
you to-day. 

And the service upon which you enter — one in 
which minds of the finest fibre and of imperial ca- 
pacity have been engaged all along — how noble and 
ennobling. To educe, call forth and develop the 
human mind : to find in the pupils committed to your 
care the divine image, and without sound of chisel or 
blow of mallet, bring it out to the glory of God and 
the advance of mankind, — what more congenial or 
inspiring than such service ? 

And then the fields of study into which you are to 
lead ; how large, how varied, how inexhaustible, how 
rich and rewarding. History, the story, the struggles, 
the growth, the decay of nations ; Science, whether 
dealing with material forms and numbers or with spir- 
itual forces and life ; Philosophy, with its astounding 
audacity and sublime generalizations ; Language, the 
common storehouse of human thought and feeling, of 
human anguish and resolve ; the English language, 
now spoken round the world, modern languages, and 
especially the classic languages, Greek and Latin, 
those affluent fountains on which we must depend still 
for the preservation and replenishment of a pure, sig- 
nificant and powerful speech : and, above all, Divinity, 
the study of the being, person and character of God — 
God, the invisible One, the uncreated One, the right- 



ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE. 15 

eous Lawgiver, the infallible Judge, — ah, what ex- 
haustless and what inviting fields of study. 

And why, my brother, let me ask you as an educator, 
why should not the Bible have an authorized place in 
the college curriculum ■? To the mythology of Greece 
and Rome we give an appointed time — studies of 
limited advantage, at best- — studies of doubtful ten- 
dency, unless counteracted by other and better. Why 
not make the veritable theophany of the Bible, and 
the religion that stands upon immutable and unques- 
tionable facts, and has a history as far beyond fable 
as wisdom is beyond folly — why not make the Chris- 
tian's Bible, whose appeals to the youthful sensibilities 
neither excite lust, nor justify sin ; whose unmatched 
teachings expand the intellect, quicken the conscience, 
and purify the heart — I say, why not make the study 
of the Bible a part of the work of College life ? The 
prophet's salt healed the fountain at Jericho. And 
the Christian's Bible, why may it not do the same 
thing- for the college : heal its waters and make them 
sweet and life-giving wherever they flow? 

May we not lay this thought, with all its suggestive- 
ness, on the heart of our young President ? To our 
President, especially, the churches will look. And the 
instinct of piety is of quick apprehension. The College 
was founded not for secular education alone. It en- 
tered vitally into the elementary designs of the found- 
ers to make the College a fountain of living piety, as 
well as of sound learning. It grieves us, not to see 



16 ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE. 

other claims urged, but to see the religion of the cruci- 
fied one ignored or neglected. It gladdens our hearts 
to see the Christian religion revived and enthroned in 
the College. We confide to you to-day that which is 
dearest to us here, the religious interests of the Col- 
lege. We demand, at your hands, as our commence- 
ments shall come round, the ablest and truest of all 
your pupils for the service of the Christian church. 

And yet we do not ask of you to forget one interest 
in order that you may forge another into excessive 
bulk. The College is not the place for specialties. 
The cry for electives, if heard sooner than the third 
year, is heard too soon. The College is to prescribe 
Study — study for every student — but more and more 
persistently ivhat to study. Otherwise, not symmetry 
but monstrosity may characterize the product. The 
architect whose aim is a building to be enjoyed and 
admired for a generation does not shoot a spire up 
into the air apart from the edifice and the foundations. 
On the other hand, the spire must rise from founda- 
tions deep and broad, and completing proportions to 
which the whole superstructure lends aid. After such 
a model give us education. For a hasty shift through 
specialties into professions we care little. It is a 
foundation laid upon the bed rock, and a superstruc- 
ture patiently raised in due proportions and symmetry 
that we covet. Let the specialty come after the cur- 
riculum has gone. 

But I must not stand longer between you and those 



ADDRESS OF INVESTITURE. 17 

who wait to hear you. Let me say only, in conclusion, 
that what we look to as the end of all your anxious 
toil and earnest teaching is character — pure, sound, 
abiding character. Not smartness, not shrewdness, 
not the power to outrun or. over-reach in any of life's 
relations, but integrity — intellectual, moral and spir- 
itual integrity — this is the want of to-day and of all 
days. Send out, therefore, men who shall enter into 
all the relations and pursuits of life, giving, spontane- 
ously, a 'strong arm to the support of order, law, 
schools, churches and all the institutions of the Repub- 
lic. Send us men to be trusted — to be trusted with 
leadership in all the walks of society, in all the strug- 
gles for pre-eminence and in all the offices of educa- 
tion, business and government. The work is great ? 
Yes. And the reward ? Beyond our reckoning. 

And now, as a sign of the confidence which we re- 
pose in you, and also as a symbol of the authority 
with which we invest you, I commit to your hand and 
keeping, Mr. President, the keys of Bowdoin College. 

And the Lord God of our fathers bless you with 
divinest gifts and crown your labors with an abundant 
success. Amen. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 



PRESIDENT HYDE. 



• 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



All life is organic. Nothing that lives, lives unto 
itself. In the tree, in the animal, in man, in society, 
each member is at once means and end to every other. 
Isolation is death. Self-sufficiency is suicide. The 
severed branch withers ; the fruitless tree is hewn 
down and cast into the flames. The unprofitable ser- 
vant is doomed to outer darkness and destruction. 
The nation that ceases to serve humanity is ripe for 
anarchy and overthrow. The church that neglects its 
saving mission is left to decay and desolation. 

To this inexorable law the College is no exception. 
When its ministry of elevation and enlightment ceases, 
its days are numbered. Its usefulness to the com- 
munity is its only claim to support. Its fruitfulness 
in service to church, society and state constitutes its 
sole right to be. Each day is for it, as for us all, a 
judgment day * and what it does or fails to do decides 
its fate. 

Were the chair I am to occupy one which had not 
been occupied by honored predecessors ; were the insti- 
tution in which I am to serve a new experiment, it 



22 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

would be fitting that I should discuss in abstract terms 
the theoretical relationship existing between education 
on the one hand, and the social, civil and religious 
welfare of the community on the other ; appealing to 
the future to vindicate by facts the prophecies which 
theory might make. Such naturally enough was the 
course pursued by the earlier Presidents of the Col- 
lege, as on occasions similar to this they set forth the 
principles which led them to enter on their work. 
Indeed, faith in that future which with God's help they 
were destined to create was their only ground for con- 
fidence. 

To us, however, a different course is open. They 
have labored, and we have entered into their labors. 
And though we may not rest in their labors ; though 
for us as for them our work must be in the actual 
present, our hope in the future, and our confidence and 
our reward in God, yet we may justly look to the 
achievements of the past as a witness of what the Col- 
lege has done for the community ; as an inspiration to 
present effort ; and as a promise of continued prosperity. 

Let us then briefly review the results of work ac- 
complished since President McKeen was called to oc- 
cupy this chair, eighty-four years ago. 

Gathered from farm and store, from country district 
and from city home, two thousand one hundred forty- 
five young men have here pursued a four-years course 
of liberal studies, and received the Bachelor's degree. 
Consider that bare fact, stripped of its consequences to 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 23 

the world. Is it not a noble work, to have taken 
seven hundred of the brightest youth of each of three 
generations, hungering and thirsting for deeper and 
wider careers and fuller lives than the narrow circum- 
stances and opportunities of their immediate locality 
could afford ; to have multiplied the power, softened 
the heart, strengthened the intellect, deepened the joy 
of these young men, as this College has done during 
its fourscore years of active service ? Is not this in 
itself a vindication of the essential dependence of the 
community upon the College, in this most vital matter 
of enabling its choicest youth to attain their highest 
ideals and realize their noblest aims ? Every member 
of the community who reverences man, who finds de- 
light in seeing lawful ambition gratified, latent power 
developed, cherished plans matured, and divine prompt- 
ings nobly responded to, must look with affectionate 
interest and favor on that kind hearted mother who 
welcomes to her family and offers her intellectual 
stores, and confers her own name, with all its rights, 
privileges, dignities and honors on every young man 
who has confidence enough in her generosity and his 
own energy to trust himself to her discipline and care. 
Yet after all, this is the College's lowest claim. So- 
ciety is organic. And if the work stopped with the 
benefit conferred upon the individual, its claim, though 
valid from the point of view of pure philanthropy, 
would yet lack the urgency of social necessity. The 
great claim of the College is not the benefits it has 



24 INAUGUEAL ADDRESS. 

conferred on these two thousand one hundred forty- 
five graduates. It is rather the work that they have 
done. 

Let us- glance briefly, at the work these sons of 
Bowdoin have achieved. In the first place they have 
paid back to the community the instruction given at 
the college in the very coin in which they have re- 
ceived it. Of these two thousand one hundred forty- 
five men, over eight hundred have engaged in teaching 
for a longer or shorter period. Many of these to be 
sure have made teaching a stepping-stone to another 
profession. Yet a goodly number have made it their life 
work. Who can estimate the benefits the community 
has received from eight hundred teachers, occupying 
positions in the high schools and academies of this and 
other states ? The schools would doubtless have been 
taught, if unsupplied by Bowdoin men. Yet in the 
great majority of cases, they have taught in schools where 
men of equal training were not at the time to be secured. 
Bowdoin was a pioneer College, and her teachers have 
largely been themselves pioneers in the cause of sound 
and thorough teaching. Nor have the teachers whom 
Bowdoin has sent out been confined to high schools 
and academies alone. One in every twenty-one of her 
graduates, that is one hundred and seven in all, have 
been College professors. One in every hundred, or 
twenty-three in all, have been College Presidents. 

The list of those who have contributed to literature 
is too familiar to be repeated here. It is sufficient to 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 25 

say that the alumni alcove of our Library contains one 
thousand books and four thousand pamphlets. Among 
< the authors of these books there are not less than twenty 
men with whose works in literature, philosophy, the- 
ology and science every educated American is familiar. 

Two hundred and sixty, or twelve per cent, of the 
entire number, have practiced medicine, eighteen of 
whom have been Professors in schools of medicine. 

Four hundred and twenty-nine, or exactly twenty 
per cent, of the graduates, have given themselves to 
the ministry of the gospel, in our own and in foreign 
lands. Of these eighteen have been Professors in the- 
ological seminaries, and to-day Bangor, Bates, Andover, 
Harvard, Yale and Union have Bowdoin graduates 
upon their faculties. 

Eight hundred and one, or thirty-seven per cent, of 
the number, have studied law ; a large proportion of 
whom have sat upon the bench. 

Two hundred and fourteen, or ten per cent, of the 
number, have either as members of State Legislatures 
or as State executive officers, or as members of Con- 
gress, or as foreign ministers taken active part in 
politics. 

Twenty-three, or one in each hundred, have been in 
Congress. Seven have been in the United States Sen- 
ate ; and one has held the highest office in the nation. 
With the single exception of the unexpired term follow- 
ing the death of her most distinguished Senator, the 



26 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

State of Maine has had a Bowdoin graduate in her 
Congressional delegation continuously since 1825, and 
during fourteen out of its sixty-six years the State has 
had a Bowdoin graduate for Governor. 

Sixty-five have devoted themselves to journalism, 
and among the papers whose editorial staff has con- 
tained Bowdoin men are nearly all the leading papers 
of Maine, Boston and New York city. 

Very nearly seventy per cent, of the graduates have 
engaged in one of the three leading professions ; and 
if we include teaching and journalism we may say that 
ninety per cent, of all the graduates have engaged for 
a longer or shorter period in distinctively literary and 
professional work. 

In speaking within these memorial walls of what 
Bowdoin College has contributed to the community, it 
is appropriate that the service rendered by Bowdoin 
men in defence of their country should conclude the list. 
Bowdoin gave to the late war two hundred and sixty- 
six of her sons. The generousness of her response 
may be seen from the fact that the ten classes from 
'56 to '65, out of three hundred and ninety-five men gave 
one hundred and seventy-eight, or forty-five per cent, of 
the total number. Without reference to the dis- 
tinguished services of individual men, the simple recital 
of the bare facts must here suffice. 

Such are the plain facts, not as projected by an en- 
thusiastic imagination ; not as developed logically 
from assumed premises ; but as achieved in actual ex- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 27 

perience. and written down in the irreversible pages 
of history. These facts I commend to the attention 
of all friends of Bowdoin and citizens of Maine. Think 
what it means to a community that its health, its 
rights of person and of property, its political policy, its 
educational interests, its interpretation of current 
events, its religious faith have been guarded and 
guided and maintained by men who brought to these 
high services the fruits of ancient wisdom, the results 
of contemporary experience accessible only in foreign 
tongues, the sound results of the latest science, and 
above all minds trained to habitual contemplation of 
great historic movements and lofty moral ideas ? Take 
out of the life of this community the work of these 
men in these various departments of social and public 
service ; substitute for their thorough unselfish work 
the slip-shod performances of untrained, unprincipled, 
or narrow-minded men, and to a great degree you would 
strip this community of those qualities of general in- 
telligence, political leadership, professional integrity 
and Christian charity which constitute the glory of a 
state. Yes ; the difference between the scholar and 
the ignoramus in your teachers' chairs ; the difference 
between the jurist and the pettifogger in your courts ; 
the difference between the scientific physician and the 
quack by the bedside of the sick ; the difference be- 
tween the man of learning and the fool on your edito- 
rial staffs ; the difference between the statesman and 
the demagogue in your legislative halls ; the difference 



28 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

between the rational believer and the declaiming char- 
latan in your sacred desk is in large measure the dif- 
ference between civilization and barbarism ; between 
the peaceful security of society and the lawless violence 
of anarchy ; between the glory and liberty of the 
kingdom of God and the darkness and bondage of a 
perpetual reign of superstition, injustice and oppres- 
sion. He that can appreciate aright the infinite width 
of that celestial diameter that separates these two con- 
ditions knows how vital is the relationship between 
the College and the community. 

It is the law of all organic life that each member 
shall be at once means and end to every other. I shall 
speak first of that side of the relationship in virtue of 
which the community is under obligation to furnish 
the means whereby the ends of the College are to be 
attained. After the simple recital of Bowdoin's con- 
tributions to the community it needs no argument to 
convince you that the College has a just and rightful 
claim upon the community, both for the choicest of 
the young men of the state, and for ample funds to 
carry on her work. The College, like every other liv- 
ing institution, wants men and money. In some com- 
munities this obligation of the state to its institutions 
of higher learning is recognized by statute, and en- 
forced by taxation. Our fathers, however, wisely see- 
ing that the cause of higher learning, like that of 
religion, is too sacred to be intrusted to the vicissitudes 
of political interference, generously gave the means by 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. -29 

which this College was founded, and vested the gov- 
ernment in boards, responsible ■ only to the public sen- 
timent of the community, and dependent for support 
entirely upon the voluntary generosity of those citizens 
whose enlightened public spirit should enable them to 
appreciate its claim. They had the confidence to be- 
lieve that, having been founded and started by their 
generous self-sacrifice, the College would never ask in 
vain from any generation of their sons the means of 
sufficient maintenance. 

And though it is true the funds to-day are insuf- 
ficient ; though in view of decreasing income from 
investments, and imperative necessity of immediate 
extension of our teaching force, the need is sore and 
pressing, yet I enter on this work in full faith that the 
needed funds will not be wanting. Were these build- 
ings newly reared ; were the audience that gathers 
here to-clay a mere group of curious spectators ; were 
the community about us composed of adventurous 
money-makers devoid of intelligent public spirit ; then, 
indeed, it would be a hopeless task to undertake to 
carry on the work of a first-rate College with the 
funds at our disposal. But Bowdoin's history is worth 
more than thousands of dollars ; her sons are better 
sureties of her future prosperity than bonds ; the com- 
munity which she has done so much to form is a safer 
resource than a bank account. It is because I have 
this faith that in time of need these resources will 
never be found unavailing, that, notwithstanding a 



30 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

full consciousness of present financial needs, I cheer- 
fully and hopefully enter on the duties connected with 
this chair. 

Before leaving this subject, let me turn aside to 
answer one serious practical objection. Some one will 
say, — and would that this objection were confined to 
words alone — " There are institutions elsewhere, 
already well endowed, and well supplied with students. 
Why not send our men and give our money there ? " 
Let us look at that objection in the light of the organic 
relationship of the College and the community. It is 
not every young man desirous of an education who 
can afford to go to distant states to procure it. Again, 
if you allow the educational interests of your own 
locality to become feeble and die out, you thereby 
withdraw from the community a mighty awakening 
force. The College creates half its local constituency ; 
and where there is no vigorous College in the neigh- 
borhood, attracting the attention and rousing the en- 
thusiasm of young men, there the number of students 
who go away to any College is small. The community 
needs the College within its own limits, to rouse its 
young men to be students. 

The history of the College, however, furnishes the 
conclusive refutation of this fallacious objection. 
When Maine was politically a province, the wisdom 
and generosity of the fathers decreed that intellectually 
this community should be free and independent. The 
history of the College has established the intellectual 



INAUGUKAL ADDRESS. 31 

equality and independence of this community. In the 
face of these historic facts, will any son of Maine now 
rise up and say that, having become politically an 
equal and independent state, she shall now begin to 
take a dependent and provincial attitude in matters of 
education ? The man who, without* specific reason, 
neglects the institutions of his own state to support 
those of others, reverses the work of those who made 
a political province an intellectual sovereignty, and, so 
far as is in his power, reduces a sovereign state to an 
intellectual province. 

There is another much debated question on which 
the principle of the organic relationship of College and 
community throws light. I refer to the aid of students 
by scholarships. Much has been said of late against 
this form of benevolence. It is urged that such aid 
destroys the young man's independence. Undoubtedly 
there is a certain sort of independence of which such aid 
is destructive. If by independence you mean freedom 
from all sense of personal obligation, I grant that the 
aid received from a scholarship destroys it. In fact, 
the acceptance of an education from any endowed in- 
stitution destroys such independence. And I may add, 
the sooner such independence as that is destroyed the 
better. Freedom from the sense of personal obligation 
is by no means the ideal of the scholar's consciousness. 
At the breakingfout of the late war, General Grant 
offered his services to his country, saying that, having 
been educated at the country's expense, he felt that his 



32 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

services of right belonged to her. Was that sense of 
grateful, loyal dependence a blemish to be ashamed of, 
a defect to be deplored ? If such gratuitous education 
on the part of the government, and the consequent ob- 
ligation devolving upon all the recipients of such edu- 
cation to defend the nation in time of war receives 
the approving suffrage of all good citizens, why should 
not the community likewise help her chosen youth to 
prepare themselves for those no less important services 
to the community which good citizenship requires in 
time of peace ? The ideal College graduate is not the 
self-sufficient, independent savant who feels no obliga- 
tion, and acknowledges no consequent responsibility. 
Rather is he the man who, deeply grateful for the op- 
portunities he has received, feels himself henceforth in 
duty bound to devote his learning to the support and 
furtherance of every cause whereby he may contribute 
to the intellectual, social, political and religious welfare 
of the community, and so repay the debt it is his 
privilege to have contracted and his honor to acknowl- 
edge. That there is a base and servile dependence 
likely to be fostered in some cases by excessive help is 
not to be denied. In some quarters no doubt where 
students for the ministry have been helped too much 
before entering on their work and paid too little after 
their work begun, self-respect has suffered. Here, as 
elsewhere, abuses may fasten themselves on worthiest 
endeavors. But until evidence is furnished that one 
needy Bowdoin student has been injured by having 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 33 

his way made too easy, to all friends who wish to per- 
petuate their devotion to the College, and to promote 
the cause of education, we shall present this as one of 
the many ways in which such purpose may find accepta- 
ble expression. 

As this principle of the organic connection of the 
College and the community makes clear the duty of 
the citizens to support the College, so likewise it marks 
out for the College a course from which it may not 
dare to depart. It determines the curriculum so pre- 
cisely that no man's caprice may venture to meddle 
with it. On the question of retaining the classics it 
speaks with no uncertain sound. These ancient tongues 
contain the words, and sing the deeds of the bright, 
gladsome, hopeful, Godlike childhood of the race. Wise 
with the insight of open vision ; warm with a passion 
untainted by introspection and uncorrupted by self- 
consciousness ; aglow with an enthusiasm that has no 
sordid mixture of material calculations to deaden its 
flame ; animated by a religious spirit, which, if earth- 
born and familiar, was genuine and hearty, these 
writings are the perennial fountain whence all later 
attempts to give to the prosaic facts of daily life their 
ideal meaning and relations, must take their standards 
and draw their inspiration. 

The community has a right to say whether those of 
its members who are to be the standard bearers of its 
literature, and the exponents of its life, shall stand in 
living continuity with these great masters of literature, 



34 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

and interpreters of life, or whether they shall be left 
to the pitiful alternative of either using second-hand 
copies, or relying on their own unchastened originality. 
And when we bear in mind the fact that the commu- 
nity whose scholars do not read the classic authors, 
will itself be found without poet or historian to record 
its own life in words which other men and other ages 
shall care to read ; when we realize that neglect of the 
Classics means for a community the severing of itself 
from the continuity of the world's literary life, we 
shall wait for a more emphatic and unanimous demand 
from the community than has yet been heard before 
any man receives the degree of Bachelor of Arts, who 
has not in his possession the two ancient keys which 
alone unlock the literary storehouse of the world. 

Improved methods may diminish the time necessary 
for their acquisition ; other studies may rise in relative 
importance ; but so long as the College remains the 
faithful guardian of the rights of the community to be 
represented in the supreme parliament of the world's 
greatest minds ; so long as the College stands to vindi- 
cate the claim of the community to its share in all that 
is grandest, and purest, and brightest in human thought 
and achievement, so long will these mother tongues of 
civilized humanity demand of each candidate for col- 
legiate honors that he render account of his native 
powers and acquired training in terms of their own 
perspicuous elegance and fine precision. 

Fidelity to the trust imposed upon it by the com- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 35 

munity will likewise compel the College to require of 
each student, ability to read the two leading languages 
of modern Europe, the discipline of Mathematics, the 
elements of Chemistry, the principles of one or more of 
the special Sciences, some knowledge of the lessons of 
History ; some acqaintance with the theories and ter- 
minology of Political Economy; a good degree of 
training in Ehetoric and Oratory. An apprehension 
of the nature and processes of the Human Intellect, of 
the plain principles of Morality, and of the grounds of 
Christian Faith should likewise be required of every 
student in a College which becomes responsible to the 
community for the training and furnishing of those 
who are to be in matters of such prime importance her 
leading citizens. 

The College must however bear in mind, what the 
community is never slow to remind us of, that a man 
who is merely stuffed with information is no credit to 
himself, brings no honor to the College and confers no 
benefit on the community. All that was indicated 
above may be thoroughly accomplished, and yet leave 
a fraction of the time throughout the last two or 
three years, small at first but gradually increasing as 
the conclusion of the course is approached, which may 
be devoted wisely to elective studies. The aim of 
such election is twofold, moral and mental. The 
prime object is to enlist the student's will directly in 
the work of his own education. Where everything is 
required, the student is tempted to regard his educa- 



36 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

tion as handed over to the authorities of the College, 
and he consequently adopts a passive attitude. Dur- 
ing his course he receives what is offered him, and 
after he is thrown out upon the world must begin 
the all-important work of mental self-determination. 
Unaccustomed to self-direction in mental pursuits, he 
drifts with the current in which he finds himself ; and 
unless he has a strong native power of resolution, he 
ceases his intellectual activity when the College pres- 
sure is withdrawn, and so is lost to the cause of 
thorough scholarship. 

The elective system aims first of all to cultivate this 
moral power of self-determination in intellectual work. 
It aims to remove the leading strings, in order that 
the developing mind may the sooner learn to walk 
alone. So far as the experience of this College goes, 
the interest in the work is increased, and the moral 
attitude of the student toward his work is elevated 
wherever election is allowed. 

A second advantage of a degree of option in those 
studies which are additional to the essential require- 
ments already indicated is that special tastes and apti- 
tudes are thereby developed, and particular lines of 
future interest and study established. The one occa- 
sion for regret one finds in reading the biographies of 
College alumni is that so many of them have shifted 
about from one profession or pursuit to another. They 
were not ready for their final choice until several 
years after graduation ; and changes from law to the 



INAUGURAL ADDEESS. 37 

ministry, from the ministry to medicine, from med- 
icine to law, from profession to business, and from 
business to profession are excessively frequent. By 
combining trie required course and the elective system, 
the College endeavors to give the student the general 
education which he ought to have for whatever course 
of life he enters ; and in addition, to give him an 
opportunity to find out in which of the various lines 
of mental work he can do best, and to give him a 
start in that. 

The precise proportion of required elective work is 
a matter for cautious experiment to determine. Suffice 
it to say that so long as Classic and Modern Languages, 
Mathematics, at least one Physical Science, Rhetoric, 
Political Science and Mental and Moral Philosophy are 
required, the elective system need give no uneasiness 
even to its most strenuous opponents. 

The community, watchful critic of College policy as 
it is and ever ought to be, has long complained that 
students have purchased their mental attainments at 
the expense of their physical vigor and vitality. The 
College certainly owes to the community that the men 
she gives them shall be men of vigorous health, steady 
nerves, and capable of enduring the intense strain 
which responsibility in public and professional life in- 
variably involves. To meet this end an ample and 
commodious gymnasium has been erected during the 
past year, and with a competent director in charge, 



38 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

the College will enter upon the coming year fully 
equipped for the important work of physical training. 

As the College in fidelity to the trust imposed upon 
it by public support and confidence must recognize the 
claims of the physical nature on which all mental ac- 
tivity depends, so it must include the training of the 
moral and religious nature to which all mental power 
should be subservient. To send forth men disciplined 
in mind, yet undeveloped in moral sentiment and des- 
titute of true religious reverence, would be to render 
to the community a service akin to that of turning loose 
upon them an army of soldiers, well equipped and dis- 
ciplined, yet with no commander to control them, and 
no campaign to absorb their energies. Plunder and 
devastation would be the inevitable result. If the 
community is to receive into its numbers annually a 
company of men provided with superior equipments 
for the conflicts of civil life, it has a right to the as- 
surance that so far as the regular observance of reli- 
gious worship, and the personal influence and example 
of the professors can contribute to it, the graduates 
shall go forth in a spirit of reverence toward God, and 
of faithful, unselfish service to their fellow men. 

Inasmuch as the Christian church is divided into 
sects, and in view of the fact that all other religious 
interests are at present administered by these several 
sects, it is obviously fitting that the religious control 
of the College should rest in the hands of some one of 
these denominations. And that the College shall in 



INAUGUKAL ADDRESS. 39 

this sense be under the control of the Congregationalist 
denomination is admitted and recognized by all con- 
cerned in its government and administration. At the 
same time, since the College belongs in the widest 
sense to the community, and to the Church Catholic, 
every form of sincere Christian faith should be re- 
spected ; denominational proselyting should never be 
attempted ; and each student should be encouraged to 
live consistently in the form of faith which parental 
example and early association has hallowed and made 
sacred. The religious teaching should be positively 
evangelical ; avoiding controversial attacks on other 
forms of faith. The College must first of all be loyal 
to Christ ; secondly, it must squarely identify itself 
with that interpretation of Christianity to which its 
history and ecclesiastical affiliation commit it. It 
must do this, however with all due respect for the va- 
rious forms of faith prevailing in the community at 
large. 

The community likewise has a right to expect that 
the young men whom it intrusts to the College, should 
there learn obedience and reverence for law. It is also 
to be remembered that the State is democratic ; that 
the laws which the citizen is to obey are those which 
he himself enacts and enforces, though by no means 
deriving their authority from his individual will. The 
College, therefore, owes it to the community that the 
students of the College shall have that discipline, in 
both enforcing and obeying just and needful laws, which 



40 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

is so vital to good citizenship in a democratic state. 
Self-government has been in operation in Bowdoin Col- 
lege for three years. All rights of person, all ques- 
tions of good order in the buildings and about the 
grounds have been placed in their hands, and an expe- 
rience of three years has established the ability and 
readiness of the students themselves to deal satisfacto- 
rily with all these matters. In no College in the 
country have the democratic principles of government 
been so thoroughly adopted ; and as a result the rela- 
tions between the faculty and students are pleasant 
and friendly ; and the moral sentiment of the College 
community is vigorous and manly. That vice and 
disorder should be rebuked and discountenanced by a 
College faculty is a matter of course. But that these 
things should be frowned upon, prosecuted and con- 
demned by the body of students themselves is an 
achievement in College government at which the friends 
of education and morality everywhere must rejoice. 

Friends and guardians of the College, citizens of this 
community, patrons of learning, to you I submit these 
considerations on the organic relationship of the com- 
munity and the College. I enter on this work with 
the assurance that having satisfied yourselves, that, 
whoever may occupy this chair, the College, still as of 
old, is efficiently and faithfully doing the work so vital 
to the common welfare, you will never suffer her 
to want for needed support so long as this Common- 
wealth endures to require her services ; so long as the 



INAUGURAL ADDEESS. 



41 



Son of Man continues to h*we need of well-trained ser- 
vants to contribute by their learning and their labors 
to the establishment on earth of his eternal kingdom 
of Truth and Righteousness. 




^.J 



Jt!£ RARY 0F CONGRESS 



029 915 706 4 



